Concerns, Disappointments, Etc.

Poot Poot Poot! A mainline Bokumono game set in a resort town that wants to be more resort-y. Available for Nintendo Switch, Steam/PC, and Ps4/5. [ Game Guide ] JP release = Feb 2021. NA = Mar 2021. EU = Mar 2021.
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PaleSunflower
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I was going to post this as a response to another thread, but I figured that gathering all of the negativity for the game in one, easy-to-spot (and avoid) thread might be better than spreading around many different threads. Below is exclusively my opinion and impression of the game.

Please correct me if I'm wrong (and I want to be wrong), but SoS:PoOT looks like a collector-tron game of sorts. Farming is present, but the main point of the gameplay is to collect as much stuff as possible, whether those things be followers for sprites, objects for the farm, or items for the museum. All HM/SoS games have a focus on gathering things, but they also focused on characters, relationships, and occasionally story.

In this game, all non-profitable aspects have been simplified or removed, except cooking, which was changed to no longer be profitable at all for some reason. The characters have been simplified to the point that forming relationships isn't necessarily worth the effort. (I've heard that Marvelous even removed disliked and hated gifts. I could understand doing that in seedling/easy mode maybe, but I find the removal from all modes baffling. It's taking part of the characters away.) Most festivals are gone, including most notably the Harvest Festivals, and most of the ones that remain are for couples. The game has something like 200 events with various characters, but what's the point if the characters are boring and unmemorable?

I haven't heard much about the story beyond how you inherit a downtrodden farm in a dying town and are then tasked with rebuilding both the farm and town. I also haven't heard much about fishing.

While you can customize the game's world and your character, adding too much the game's world will probably cause the Switch to lag, especially in handheld mode (which is the mode I use the most), which effectively limits how much you can customize the world. To make matter worse, the dozens and dozens of makers in this game are practically mandatory to progress, meaning you have to litter your farm with many, many makers in order to get anywhere. These makers will likely contribute to the lagging from having too many objects.

Additionally, things loaded/on-screen almost certainly includes animals, so you can't have too many animals outside at one time without the game coming to a crawl. You can unlock all animals in one season, but obtaining all of them might slow down the game. Crops also probably count as objects, so having too many crops and animals on your farm in a game about farming causes the game to lag.

The character customization is truly great, but excellent character customization alone will not keep me playing. SoS:PoOT looks less like fun and more like busy work. You run around doing stuff to get more stuff. Again, I know that all SoS/HM do this, but SoS:PoOT seems to have nothing else. It feels like the whole game got simplified compared to previous games in the series. The only thing that was expanded upon was the customization, and I don't think the trade-off was worth it.

Maybe everything will be fixed in time for the English release. I also could be completely wrong about how the game and how it works. I really do want to be wrong about this game, though. I am struggling to come up with reasons to want to play this game over other games in the series or other farming games entirely.
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Kikki
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Unfortunately, there's no chance that all of that will be changed before English release in only four weeks. Most of it will never be changed at all, most likely. You're likely to see some technical improvements via updates...loading times reduced and glitches patched and so on. If the outcry in Japan is loud enough, a few other changes may get made as well, particularly to anything that is being almost unanimously requested, such as either adding portraits or changing the camera/viewpoint, either to automatically move so that you can see the face of the person you are speaking to, or to give the player control of the camera so that you can rotate it yourself. Though I don't know how difficult that would be to implement, so I won't be counting on an update like that in time for release, even if we do eventually get it.

What we're seeing in the Japanese release is what we're going to have for the English release. Xseed may have spiced up some of the repetitive, shallow dialogue for us, but we don't know. And yeah, I do think they'll apply some updates to technical issues and that by the time North America has the game, it'll run better. But other than that, I wouldn't count on any changes at all.

Anyone feeling a lot of doubt probably should not pre-order, but wait until after release so they can see the English-language experience for themselves to best judge if the game will be to their taste or not. But why struggle to try to MAKE yourself want to play the game? If you're not feeling inspired, my recommendation is to just let it go and keep an eye out, and then if you eventually do become excited to try the game, you can grab it then. That's what I'm doing, anyway.

If you haven't already checked out the 'bright side' reddit post with people commenting on all the things they love about Olive Town, I'd do that, to get a more rounded-out impression of what the game is like to play. Things people are worried about or are not enjoying tend to rise to the top and force the happy stuff to the bottom in the process.
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From what I've heard so far, the limited and lackluster festivals and non-varied character dialogues are my main downers with the game. Hopefully new festivals at least get added with the DLCs, but I kind of doubt it.
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Katze
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The makers are a significant problem and I really hope they release a patch soon to allow them to make more than one at a time. I read somewhere that apparently you can eventually upgrade to makers that can make multiple items at once, but I’ve yet to see any proof of that so for now I’m just going to treat it as a rumor.

I think they probably did remove disliked/hated gifts, as I’ve given everyone stuff like rocks and grass and have only ever gotten a neutral response. Although I think this was a dumb decision, it doesn’t really negatively impact my enjoyment of the game.

Completely disagree about the game feeling like a collect-a-thon. The museum exists and there are items you can donate to it, but it doesn’t feel like a significant part of the game at all. The main focus of the game is building up your farm and improving the town, both of which I think are pretty enjoyable (though the lag makes customizing your farm a lot less fun than it should be).

Also completely disagree about the character events being boring. I didn’t play 3oT so I can’t compare them to the ones from that game, but I’ve gotten several random events and so far I’ve liked all of them. They aren’t necessarily full of drama and intrigue, nothing of significance really happens, but they feel like small snapshots of these characters’ daily lives and honestly it’s pretty nice. A couple of them were even pretty funny! I think a bigger issue is the dry daily dialogue, but I have less than 2 hearts with everyone so I can’t say whether that will improve with time or not.
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I'm already going out with Ralph and his heart level is now already 8, and his daily dialogues don't change from when we're still 'just friends'. So yeah, I'm kinda disappointed on that matter, but dunno, maybe because I'm playing same « Chicken Hugging » then it's all quite dry and barren. I played same « Chicken Hugging » too in the remake of Mineral Town (the japanese version) and the dialogues are also not all all lovey dovey even after marriage. For this Olive Town, I guess I'll see how after marriage, if anything changes/improves, in term of daily dialogues with your spouse, but I won't hope too much. :|

As for the events, yeah I agree that despite they may not be dramatic whatsoever, they're not bad and yeah you can get info about characters from their events and yeah some are quite funny.

The small numbers of festivals is unfortunate, and I don't understand why they even omit spring and winter harmony, and the egg hunt is basically only watch cutscene of your character looking for eggs instead of doing mini game of looking for eggs like in trio of towns, but I'll see how it is with other festivals that I haven't seen yet before really making my final judgement.
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Katze wrote:The makers are a significant problem and I really hope they release a patch soon to allow them to make more than one at a time. I read somewhere that apparently you can eventually upgrade to makers that can make multiple items at once, but I’ve yet to see any proof of that so for now I’m just going to treat it as a rumor.

I think they probably did remove disliked/hated gifts, as I’ve given everyone stuff like rocks and grass and have only ever gotten a neutral response. Although I think this was a dumb decision, it doesn’t really negatively impact my enjoyment of the game.

Completely disagree about the game feeling like a collect-a-thon. The museum exists and there are items you can donate to it, but it doesn’t feel like a significant part of the game at all. The main focus of the game is building up your farm and improving the town, both of which I think are pretty enjoyable (though the lag makes customizing your farm a lot less fun than it should be).

Also completely disagree about the character events being boring. I didn’t play 3oT so I can’t compare them to the ones from that game, but I’ve gotten several random events and so far I’ve liked all of them. They aren’t necessarily full of drama and intrigue, nothing of significance really happens, but they feel like small snapshots of these characters’ daily lives and honestly it’s pretty nice. A couple of them were even pretty funny! I think a bigger issue is the dry daily dialogue, but I have less than 2 hearts with everyone so I can’t say whether that will improve with time or not.
I posted some proof of multi-item makers in the announcement thread. They definitely do exist, though it looks very late game. (The large makers require 100s of materials.) Still, I'm glad we won't be stuck making one item at a time forever!
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Well, I guess A New Beginning had to walk so Story of Seasons could run, so I guess I can look forward to the next SoS game they release in 2.5 years
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Kikki wrote:Unfortunately, there's no chance that all of that will be changed before English release in only four weeks. Most of it will never be changed at all, most likely. You're likely to see some technical improvements via updates...loading times reduced and glitches patched and so on. If the outcry in Japan is loud enough, a few other changes may get made as well, particularly to anything that is being almost unanimously requested, such as either adding portraits or changing the camera/viewpoint, either to automatically move so that you can see the face of the person you are speaking to, or to give the player control of the camera so that you can rotate it yourself. Though I don't know how difficult that would be to implement, so I won't be counting on an update like that in time for release, even if we do eventually get it.

(...)

Anyone feeling a lot of doubt probably should not pre-order, but wait until after release so they can see the English-language experience for themselves to best judge if the game will be to their taste or not. But why struggle to try to MAKE yourself want to play the game? If you're not feeling inspired, my recommendation is to just let it go and keep an eye out, and then if you eventually do become excited to try the game, you can grab it then. That's what I'm doing, anyway.

If you haven't already checked out the 'bright side' reddit post with people commenting on all the things they love about Olive Town, I'd do that, to get a more rounded-out impression of what the game is like to play. Things people are worried about or are not enjoying tend to rise to the top and force the happy stuff to the bottom in the process.
I guess the issue is that I feel like this game is a downgrade in many regards. It feels like my money would be better spent on buying RF4 SE or HM:ANB again than buying the new game. I waited over 4 years to to see a new, non-remake SoS game and this is it? I am very disappointed. Also, I forgot about the lack of NPC visibility during conversations in my original post. I already know that is an issue that won't fixed for a long time, assuming it is fixed at all, unless something was dummied out during development.

I did see that thread on Reddit. My favorite part is how customized the bedrooms of the NPC are, apparently. The mining returning to how was previously with the different levels is also nice. In my opinion, the mining looks better than the farming/ranching aspect of the game, because of the former appears to have fewer technical problems than the latter, despite this game being a farming game. :shock:

(Players can customize the farm the way each one wants to, but, if I build the big, full farm I usually make in the late game, then the game will struggle to run. I feel like the game will punish me for customizing too much. I'd prefer they limit how many things I can put on the farm in the first place then have me find out the hard way that I put too much on my farm. I can see it now - I build up my farm in the editor, and then I enter the farm normally and the game loses half of its frames and everything pops in bits at time.
Katze wrote:I think they probably did remove disliked/hated gifts, as I’ve given everyone stuff like rocks and grass and have only ever gotten a neutral response. Although I think this was a dumb decision, it doesn’t really negatively impact my enjoyment of the game.

(...)

(Also completely disagree about the character events being boring. I didn’t play 3oT so I can’t compare them to the ones from that game, but I’ve gotten several random events and so far I’ve liked all of them. They aren’t necessarily full of drama and intrigue, nothing of significance really happens, but they feel like small snapshots of these characters’ daily lives and honestly it’s pretty nice. A couple of them were even pretty funny! I think a bigger issue is the dry daily dialogue, but I have less than 2 hearts with everyone so I can’t say whether that will improve with time or not.
Honestly, the lack of disliked and hated items isn't a deal-breaker by itself to me, but it is pretty lame. Combined with the reports that the characters themselves are usually rather "dry" to work with most of the time, I feel like the characters aren't as deep as in previous entries, that the characters have been reduced in a way or something like that.

Also, I didn't call the character events boring. (I haven't heard much about the events outside of most of them being short so far.) I called the characters themselves boring (which is just my opinion, not a fact). If don't care for the characters, then I will probably miss most of their cool events unless I search for them on Youtube or something. If I was interested in 100% completing games, then I could see the point of befriending everyone, but I usually don't 100% complete games.

(Not to mention that I don't think that they will do the characters from previous games any justice, but I will my speculation on unreleased/undiscovered stuff to a minimum.)

Really, the whole game for me so far can be summed up as a huge bummer. :(
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Kikki
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For me, the farming in Olive Town looks really fun. I mean, they have de-emphasized how IMPORTANT the farming is, as far as I can tell, with removing any farming festivals, and your crops don't seem particularly important to game progression. Resource gathering seems way more important for that. But the actual actions of farming look super fun, to me, as does all the foraging (though I really am not pleased by the constant need to manage inventory due to a tiny backpack and storage units that don't interconnect...that puts a bit of a damper on the fun of foraging.) The thought of cleaning up my farm, fixing up buildings and bridges and clearing obstacles, and finding new forage-ables is exciting. I totally want to do all that, and unlock new areas, find all the koropons, fix everything that's ugly and make it pretty again. Yep, I wanna do it.

But the social scene looks like a wasteland, to me. The characters seem really boring to me, too. (Haven't seen any events...I'm going by their daily dialogue, which is more important than events, in my books, since events are one time only each and dialogue is multiple times every day.) The Olive Town crew feel about as interesting to me as the various named but faceless wandering NPCs in Trio of Towns, or the stationary ones like Holt at Log House and Ethan at the Post office...or the part time job recruiters stationed in each town.

I feel like the game gives you lots of opportunity to do fun stuff, but put bad systems in place to support them. Fun farming and foraging, but horrible storage situation, etc. A fair lot of character events, but so many festivals you can't partipate in, and lackluster daily dialogue.

My opinion is honestly so split that that's why I had to cancel my pre-order. I'm too uncertain. I honestly don't know if the pros or cons would win out, once I was playing. I know there are things that are really going to bug me about the game, just like I know there are things I'm going to love, and it's not at all clear to me which way the balance will lean, for me.

~

Playing a farming game you already love from a new angle might help cover your farming yen. I recently have been thinking of playing Trio to marry Inari, which I never considered before, but there is some special appeal to me in a marriage where they're a magical being that doesn't live with you, and that only you can see. I feel like I'd have a whole different view of the type of game I was playing, if I went for Inari, even though I had no interest in doing so before. It feels like the game would be more of a fantasy, that way.

It sounds like you're gonna have to do what I'll have to do, with Olive Town, and just wait to see if anything changes with the North American release. Whether due to Xseed's localization or any possible updates from the dev team. If I get excited enough about what I see in the NA release to go ahead and buy Olive Town, great :) But if I don't, then I'll just have to chalk this one up to a learning experience for this new director. Even though we'd all talked about the remake being their learning-the-Switch experience...looks like it didn't work that way.

EDIT: This may sound odd if you haven't played it, but I also recommend Dragon Quest Builders 2, to satisfy town-building and farming itches. It's very different, but at the same time, the entire first chapter of the game is built all around farming (of course, building is also necessary regularly, too.) I also really love Farm Together for pure farming fun, but there's no social aspect.
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K8sMum
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DQ Builders 2 is a gem that gets so much right. Just being able to access your huge inventory anywhere, anytime is great. The crafting aspect is very good. I didn't care for the 2nd chapter as much as 1 and 3, but it's a satisfying game to play. The huge demo may scratch the farming itch for some.
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Mikodesu
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:? Tbh I've avoided posting in the main threads for PoOT for a while to not bring the mood surrounding the game down. I want SO much for the game to be good and to want to play it. I want to be forgiving of the tedium and the lack of forethought at all the game's systems, but I'm really struggling.

We don't know much about the individual developers, about how experienced they are, but...I don't think that's really an excuse anymore. There's a nearly endless supply of resources these days, online and off, if you want to be a better developer. Farming sims aren't NEW anymore - or unique, either. Copying things from a game that sold well without thinking about WHY it sold well is...ignorant at best. Learning from mistakes - our own AND others - is the only way we grow.

I've heard it be said and I don't know nearly enough Japanese to be familiar, but I wonder if this is a problem with the culture in Japanese game studios? There are so many cases with small to mid sized studios in the west releasing a game, getting criticism, and making changes to the game post release. Not bug fixes, but systemic changes. And I don't think I can name a game released in Japan that did that. (Not that it hasn't happened, I just can't name one.)

The best example I can think of is pre-release demos - like what Square has done with Octopath and Triangle Strategy(?), and what Marvelous allowed the devs for Daemon Ex Machina to do. But post release it's all crickets.

Things that deliberately waste the player's time being built into the game is the biggest problem I have. When you're going out of your way to streamline farming and animal husbandry, but can't be bothered to streamline your inventory management or crafting, that's bad design. It's probably bad management, more than anything. Different people likely designed each of those systems, but the same person approved the use of both in the same game.

I never preordered PoOT, and at this point I'm just biding my time. The game will be there, whenever I'm ready to play it, but the experience of playing a game when it first releases, sharing that joy with a large group...that's what vanishes. And that's always going to be a little sad.
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Kikki wrote:Playing a farming game you already love from a new angle might help cover your farming yen. I recently have been thinking of playing Trio to marry Inari, which I never considered before, but there is some special appeal to me in a marriage where they're a magical being that doesn't live with you, and that only you can see. I feel like I'd have a whole different view of the type of game I was playing, if I went for Inari, even though I had no interest in doing so before. It feels like the game would be more of a fantasy, that way.

(...)

EDIT: This may sound odd if you haven't played it, but I also recommend Dragon Quest Builders 2, to satisfy town-building and farming itches. It's very different, but at the same time, the entire first chapter of the game is built all around farming (of course, building is also necessary regularly, too.) I also really love Farm Together for pure farming fun, but there's no social aspect.
I'll look into those games and consider getting them. I could also go back to RF4 SE ... I never did finish Rune Prana
Mikodesu wrote:Tbh I've avoided posting in the main threads for PoOT for a while to not bring the mood surrounding the game down. I want SO much for the game to be good and to want to play it. I want to be forgiving of the tedium and the lack of forethought at all the game's systems, but I'm really struggling.

We don't know much about the individual developers, about how experienced they are, but...I don't think that's really an excuse anymore. There's a nearly endless supply of resources these days, online and off, if you want to be a better developer. Farming sims aren't NEW anymore - or unique, either. Copying things from a game that sold well without thinking about WHY it sold well is...ignorant at best. Learning from mistakes - our own AND others - is the only way we grow.

I've heard it be said and I don't know nearly enough Japanese to be familiar, but I wonder if this is a problem with the culture in Japanese game studios? There are so many cases with small to mid sized studios in the west releasing a game, getting criticism, and making changes to the game post release. Not bug fixes, but systemic changes. And I don't think I can name a game released in Japan that did that. (Not that it hasn't happened, I just can't name one.)

(...)

Things that deliberately waste the player's time being built into the game is the biggest problem I have. When you're going out of your way to streamline farming and animal husbandry, but can't be bothered to streamline your inventory management or crafting, that's bad design. It's probably bad management, more than anything. Different people likely designed each of those systems, but the same person approved the use of both in the same game.
There are rumors that SoS:PoOT was rushed. Another rumor states that the game was originally a mobile game. It feels like a bunch of different systems where strung together into one game without those elements being made consistent gameplay-wise, if that makes sense. I might be wrong, but the guys who designed the NPC's bedrooms and events seem to be different from the group that made the daily dialogue and festivals, as the former appear significantly livelier and fuller than the latter. I am still frustrated by how the mining (and probably fishing, too) functions better than the farming (in a farming game, no less), because the developers didn't want to improve optimization or limit customization to match the capabilities of the Nintendo Switch. The Nintendo Switch is no longer a new console. Its abilities are well-known and documented at this point and the studio has worked on a game for the Nintendo Switch before. The developers have little excuse for the lag and frame rate drops for doing things the game tells you do (build up and customize your farm).

One of things that concerned me about this game pre-release was how often I saw comparisons to other games. The very first page of the Announcement Thread talks about how the game is like Stardew Valley and Natsume's HM. Later on, people compared the game with My Time in Portia, Animal Crossing, Little Dragons Cafe, Rune Factory, Dragon Quest Builders 2 (what a coincidence that Kikki would mention that game), and probably a few other titles and series. I know some comparisons are normal, but they all felt excessive to me. I don't know whether the Japanese audience noticed or cared about the similarities, but it really does seem like the makers behind this game wanted to copy bits and pieces of other titles. Copying aspects of other titles isn't a bad thing per se, but failing to tie these changes into your game is a problem. If one half of the team wanted make SoS like other, more recent games and the other half wanted to build off of previous SoS titles without worrying about current trends, then perhaps this split focus would explain the inconsistencies. Is this split the difference between the old hires and new hires? I don't know. I heard that the director for SoS:PoOT only completed one HM/SoS game as a director before SoS:PoOT, and it was SoS:FoMT, a remake.

Huge systematic changes post-release in general are rare. They are expensive, time-consuming, and not necessarily profitable for a company, especially if that company can put those resources toward another project. We'll have to wait and see whether Marvelous tries to fix any of the major complaints of SoS:PoOT. I doubt it, but I would like to be wrong.

I wouldn't be surprized if the next SoS game does address all of the major complaints, however. HM/SoS are/were often released in pairs or trios where games sharing similar assets and engines build off each other. HM: Another Wonderful Life used much of the same assets as HM: A Wonderful Life, but also included bug fixes and quality of life improvements. Same thing applies to, respectively, HM: DS Cute and HM: DS, SoS:ToT and SoS(1), SoS(1) and HM:ANB, and HM:AP and HM:ToT.

Also, please feel free to post your negative thoughts here in this thread. I started this thread because I didn't want to spread negativity around different threads and decided to put in one, easy-to-find (or avoid) thread.

Edit - I added a small correction. The director of SoS:PoOT has previously worked on and completed multiple HM/SoS games, but only acted as a director in one game before SoS:PoOT.
Last edited by PaleSunflower on Mar 01, 2021 7:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Mikodesu
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Hmm...rushed development does make sense. :/ I'm still leaning hard into the fault falling on the director. From some very quick research we've had a new director for the series since the FoMT remake. I can't find anything helpful to tell me what (if any) games he's directed before those...or what happened to the last series director.

I can't remember for sure exactly what the situation with Hashimoto is, either. Like if he could still fill a consulting role (a la Miyamoto w/ Nintendo) or not. He may not even have time for consulting.

The fault would still sit largely on the shoulders of the director, though. (I've seen too many GDC talks.) No matter how skilled the team, the director HAS TO have a clear vision for the game or the whole thing will be a mess. If this were this guy's first game this whole mess would make sense...to be fair a remake isn't the same thing, but...sigh. :lol:

At least it's not a Cyberpunk 2077 level problem. PoOT is absolutely playable, however messy. It might just be worse after last year...being last year. For all of us. Developing PoOT at least in part from home couldn't have been good for it (or easy). And for me personally there were almost no new games in 2020...and so far no new games in 2021...

I might be a bit grumpy about it, but I'll live.
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Mikodesu wrote:Hmm...rushed development does make sense. :/ I'm still leaning hard into the fault falling on the director. From some very quick research we've had a new director for the series since the FoMT remake. I can't find anything helpful to tell me what (if any) games he's directed before those...or what happened to the last series director.

I can't remember for sure exactly what the situation with Hashimoto is, either. Like if he could still fill a consulting role (a la Miyamoto w/ Nintendo) or not. He may not even have time for consulting.
Hashimoto founded Hakama Studios, which is a subsidiary of Marvelous. He's still with the company entirely, just working on Rune Factory 5. We don't know what Hakama will be working on after development of Rune Factory 5 comes to a close either. The studio was founded alongside "like-minded colleagues". Hashimoto's essentially doing his own thing right now. I'm not sure if there's a staff list around or not for Hakama... Here's the article on Hakama's formation. If things get dire enough, I suppose they could have him come back for a consultant role. But that largely depends on what he wants to do. For all we know he wants to work on Rune Factory, not Story of Seasons.

As for the current director, Nakano, they were credited as far back as HM64 for map graphics and have stuck with the company ever since it seems. So he's been around for a long, long time in the company. After referencing a few reviews, he seems to prioritize player freedom a lot. The interview with Nakano before the FoMT Remake came out. And the translated interview with the director from a few months back. Technically the man should know his way around the farming sim. I will applaud him for trying something drastically different, but there were more than a few things that should've been taken back to the drawing board.

Oh, and as a fun fact, Olive Town was in development for at least 2.5 years, which means they probably had the FoMT Remake running concurrently with Olive Town at some point.
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This is disappointing. I was so looking forward to this game, especially since imo each game has gotten better. I thought the next game after Trio would have to be amazing. I’m finding it especially disheartening to read the real time posts of people actually playing the game and finding the emptiness in the gameplay. The lack of festivals is especially surprising. I hope that the team at least addresses our feedback at some point, because it’s pretty unanimous. I wonder what the team is thinking right now, anyway.
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